The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

If this series of the first text preserved a genuine historical recollection, a portion of a Semitic tribe, settled in the mountains of South Armenia, or even the whole tribe – the sons of Arphaxad – journeyed to the south, after leaving nothing but their name in the mountain valley. The separation from their kindred was signified by the name Salah, i. e. "leaving." At first the sons of Arphaxad pastured their flocks at Serudsh, in the north-west of Mesopotamia, and from thence they passed to Ur on the lower Euphrates, while another branch, the sons of Joktan, turned away from the mouth of the Euphrates in the direction of Arabia. At a later time the sons of Arphaxad settled at Ur must again have marched up the Euphrates to Carrhae. Then followed a second division; one portion, the Nahorites, i. e. the people of the river, remained at Carrhae, while others, the Abrahamites, wandered to Canaan, or rather into the deserts bordering on Canaan. Moreover, since the first text denotes Abraham's eldest son Ishmael, as the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, i. e. of a considerable number of tribes of North and Central Arabia, and since the revision derives the Midianites, who wandered on the peninsula of Sinai, and further in the East, and other Arabian tribes, from the sons of Keturah, the younger sons of Abraham (pp. 324, 393), it follows that on the borders of Canaan a portion of the Abrahamites must again have broken off, and passed on to the peninsula of Arabia.

However this may be, the kinship of the Hebrews with the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Aramæans, the derivation of their tribe from the river-land of the Euphrates and Tigris, is beyond a doubt, and we must regard the districts of Arphaxad and Serug, of Ur and Carrhæ, as the original home of the tribe, which afterwards grew up to be the Hebrews. In any case it is clear from this genealogical table that the Hebrews considered themselves closely allied to the Nahorites of Haran, but more especially to a considerable number of the Arabian tribes, or Ishmaelites, i. e. the Nebajoths, the Kedarites, the Temanites, the Jeturites, and finally the Midianites. This is proved, not only by the derivation of the Ishmaelites from the eldest son of Abraham, but also by the close relationship in which the Edomites, the brothers of the Hebrews, are represented as standing to the Ishmaelites. The names Ishmael and Israel are similarly formed; the first means "God (El) hears," the second, "God strives," or "God rules."

Within this circle of kindred nations, the Hebrews occupy the foremost place. The Ishmaelites are descended, it is true, from the eldest son of Abraham; but not from a legitimate or equal marriage; the mother of their tribe is a maid-servant and an Egyptian. Ishmael's wife also came from Egypt, and, in this there may linger a dim recollection of the ancient supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt.588 The Midianites, on the other hand, spring from a younger branch than the Hebrews; and they too are not born from the true wife of Abraham, and hence are not his genuine heirs. To the Moabites also, who pastured their flocks to the east of the Dead Sea, and the Ammonites, whose land lay to the north-east of this sea, the Hebrews held themselves akin. These tribes are the descendants of Lot, Abraham's brother's son; and therefore they, like the Hebrews themselves, spring from those who had moved from Carrhae to the West. But Lot had separated from Abraham, and chosen the region of Jordan. And when Jehovah rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, because the sins of their inhabitants were grievous, and overthrew these cities, and the whole land around them, Lot with his two daughters escaped towards the East; but because all the men of Sodom were destroyed, there was no man to dwell with Lot's daughters. Then they gave their father wine to drink, and lay with him, and the elder bore Moab, and the younger Ammon. Thus although the Moabites and Ammonites are closely allied to the Hebrews, and are of the pure stock – they were begotten in incest. A dark stain rests on their origin. Obviously the bitter hostility which afterwards prevailed between the Hebrews, and the Moabites and Ammonites, and the severe wounds which the Hebrews suffered from the attacks of these nations, have had their influence in forming and moulding the story of their origin. The Judæan text narrated quite simply the separation of Abraham and Lot, the choice of the land of Jordan, the destruction of the cities, and Lot's escape.589 The broader details and motives given in the narrative are the work of the prophetic revision, to which the account of the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites exclusively belongs.

To the Hebrews, the wanderings and fortunes of their forefathers appeared compressed into the lives of the patriarchs, whose mighty forms are also to them the patterns of morality, piety, and a life pleasing to God, the expression of the genuine national character. The name Abraham means, in the form ab-ram, "high father;" in the form ab-raham, "father of the multitude." Sarah means "princess." Their right to the possessions, which they won in Canaan by the sword, they saw in the command given to their ancestors to go thither, and in the promise that the land should belong to his seed, which is given to Abraham, even in the first text. Moreover, the purchase which Abraham concluded with the Hittites of Hebron of a burying-place for his wife and himself in the cave of Machpelah – this narrative is a part of the Judæan text – and the services rendered by Abraham to Canaan gave to his descendants a claim to the possession of Canaan. Abraham planted the trees at Beersheba, and dug wells; he defended Canaan against Kedor-Laomer, and recovered from the kings of the east the booty taken, without keeping back any for himself. These services of the progenitor also constituted a claim for his descendants.

The accounts in Genesis590 of campaigns of Elamite rulers towards the west, and the supremacy of a king of Elam, one of the Kudurids, over Syria, are founded on events and circumstances which occurred about the year 2000 B.C., as has been already pointed out in detail (p. 251). The connection into which Abraham is brought with them is the work of the Hebrews, and belongs to the Ephraimitic text.591 The account which puts the Horites, who occupied Mount Seir before the Edomites, among the nations conquered by the Elamites, and beside these certain extinct and mythical tribes – the Rephaites, Susites, and Emites – shows plainly that the events must belong to a very distant past.

When the rights of the Hebrews to Canaan had been proved, when at the same time it was ascertained that the kindred tribes of Moab and Ammon could establish no claim to the land, after the voluntary renunciation of their progenitor, it remained to be shown that the ancient inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites themselves, had been from the first destined to give way to the Hebrews. We found that the Canaanites, like the Hebrews, belonged to the great family of the Semitic nations; but they were distinguished from them in character, in dialect, and religious conceptions. Hence they were not derived from Shem, but from Noah's second son, Ham; and they were also burdened with the curse of Noah – a trait which the prophetic reviser has added to the narrative.592 After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard, and he became drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent; and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, but Shem and Japhet went backwards and covered him. And when Noah heard what Ham had done, he said, "Cursed be Ham; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren."

Abraham passed through the length and breadth of Canaan, the land which his descendants were destined to possess. At Shechem and Hebron, and then in the south, at Kadesh (Barnea) and Shur, he abode longest; at Hebron, and between Bethel and Ai, he built an altar to Jehovah. The presence of the patriarchs consecrated the places where his descendants were to dwell; among the Hittites and the Canaanites Abraham remained true to the God who had led him into Canaan; he rendered a willing obedience even to the harshest command. At the places where Abraham had set up altars, and where he had offered sacrifice, we find at a later period centres of Hebrew worship: by Abraham's sacrifices they were already consecrated. The Judæan text places the abode of Abraham mainly in the south of Canaan, at Hebron; the south belonged mainly to the tribe of Judah, and Hebron was David's royal abode till he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The Ephraimitic text placed Abraham mainly at Shechem, the chief city of the tribe of Ephraim, and gives especial prominence to the sacred place at Bethel. The wandering of Abraham from the south of Canaan to Egypt, where the Pharaoh, warned by plagues from Jehovah, sends him away with valuable presents and in peace, is the work of the reviser. It is an anticipation of the later sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, and forms at the same time a contrast to the widely different circumstances of their exodus.

After long waiting, the true son is at length born to the patriarch from his wife, of the blood of his fathers in Haran.593 In order to preserve the blood of the Hebrews pure, a wife is not taken from Canaan for this son, Isaac, but the care of the father provides a wife from among his kindred, the tribe of the Nahorites, on the Euphrates. The first text tells us quite briefly, "Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramæan of Mesopotamia, the sister of Laban the Aramæan."594 The lively description of the journey and the suit of Eliezer is the work of the reviser of the two original texts. After thus providing for the continuance of the pure stock, when the oldest son, the child of Hagar, and the younger sons, the children of Keturah, had been sent away with presents, as the law of the Hebrews afterwards ordained for the sons of concubines, and directed to the East, when he had given everything into the hand of Isaac, Abraham died full of years and blessings.

Isaac was now sixty years old – such is the account given in Genesis – and his wife Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the sister of Laban, had borne him no son. Then Isaac besought Jehovah for his wife, and Jehovah heard him. Rebekah became with child, and lo! there were twins in her womb, and the children strove in her womb; and Jehovah said to her: Two nations are in thy body, and two people shall separate from thy bosom. The first boy was red in colour, and hairy, and she called him Esau; and afterwards his brother came out, and his hand was upon Esau's heel, and he was called Jacob, i. e. "one that holds the heel." And the boys grew; and Esau was a hunter, but Jacob abode in the tents, and his mother loved him. Once Esau returned weary from hunting, as Jacob was making a mess of pottage. And Esau said: Give me to eat. And Jacob replied: Sell me first thy birthright, and pledge it to me. And Esau swore, and sold his birthright, and ate and drank, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright; and when he was forty years old, he took to wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basmath (Bashemath), the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and afterwards Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Nebajoth's sister.

There was a famine in Canaan, and Isaac went to Gerar in the land of the Philistines, and there dwelt, and sowed in that land, and received a hundredfold, for Jehovah blessed him. He became more and more mighty, and had sheep, and oxen, and many servants. And Isaac dug out the wells which Abraham's servants had made, and which the Philistines had filled up after the death of Abraham. And the shepherds of Gerar strove with the shepherds of Isaac, and Isaac called the name of the wells Esek (contention) and Sitnah (hatred); but to the third, for which the shepherds of Gerar had not striven, he gave the name Rehoboth (room). From thence he went to Beersheba, and there he set up an altar.

When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, he said to Esau: Take thy bow and quiver, hunt venison for me, and make a savoury dish such as I love, that I may eat, and my soul may bless thee before I die. Esau went forth, but Rebekah, who had heard Isaac's speech, said to Jacob: Go to the flock and bring me two kids. I will prepare them for a savoury dish for thy father, that he may bless thee instead of Esau. Jacob obeyed, and Rebekah put on him the clothes of Esau, and placed on his neck and hands the skins of the kids, that his father, if he touched him, might not know Jacob by his smooth skin. Then Jacob went in to his father, and said: I am Esau, thy firstborn; eat of my venison. How hast thou found it so quickly, my son? asked the father. Jehovah, thy God, put it into my hand, he replied. The voice is the voice of Jacob, the father said, but the hands are the hands of Esau. He ate, and Jacob brought him wine, and he drank. Then Isaac said: Come near, and kiss me, my son. God give thee the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and abundance of corn and wine. Be thou lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee. Cursed be they who curse thee, and blessed be they who bless thee. And when Jacob had gone away from his father with this blessing, Esau came with his venison. Isaac trembled and said: Thy brother has come with subtilty, and taken away thy blessing. Then Esau lifted up his voice and wept, and said: My birthright has he taken from me, and now thy blessing also. Bless me, even me also, O my father. What can I do for thee? answered Isaac. Lo! I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren I have given him for servants, and I have given him corn and wine. Hast thou but one blessing? said Esau, and wept. Then Isaac said: Thy dwelling shall be without the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven. By thy sword thou shalt live; thou shalt serve thy brother, but his yoke thou shalt break from off thy neck.

Esau was at enmity with Jacob, because he had deceived him in his father's blessing; and Esau said in his heart: The days of mourning for my father will come, for I will slay Jacob. Then Rebekah said to Jacob: Arise and flee to Laban, my brother, in Haran, till the anger of thy brother is turned away. And Rebekah spoke to Isaac, that Jacob should not take a wife from the daughters of the Hittites; and Isaac bade Jacob go to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel, the father of his mother, and there take a wife from the daughters of Laban. Then Jacob went from Beersheba to Haran. And when he abode for the night at the city of Luz, he put a stone under his head, and there rested. Then in a dream he saw a ladder placed upon the earth, the end of which touched heaven, and the angels of God went up and down upon the ladder. Jehovah stood over it, and said: I am the God of Abraham thy father and of Isaac; the land whereon thou sleepest I will give to thee and thy seed. And in the morning Jacob arose, and set up the stone which he had placed under his head for a sign, and poured oil on the stone, and called the name of the place Bethel.

In the land of the children of the east Jacob saw a well, round which lay three flocks of sheep. Then Jacob said to the shepherds: Whence are ye, my brethren? They answered, From Haran. Jacob asked again: Know ye Laban, Nahor's son? And they said: We know him; it is well with him, and lo! there is Rachel, his daughter, with the sheep of her father. And Jacob rolled away the great stone, which lay at the mouth of the well, and watered Rachel's sheep; and Laban came, and took his sister's son into his house. Laban had two daughters: Leah the eldest had dim eyes, but Rachel was fair to look upon; and Jacob said to Laban: I will serve seven years for Rachel. And these seven years were as seven days in Jacob's eyes, because he loved Rachel. When the time was past, Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast. But in the dark of the evening he brought Leah instead of Rachel to Jacob, and it was not till the morning that Jacob knew Leah. Why hast thou deceived me? Jacob asked of Laban; have I not served thee seven years for Rachel? Laban answered, It is not so done in our country, to give the younger daughter before the firstborn. Serve me yet seven years, and thou shalt have Rachel also to wife. So Jacob abode seven years more with Laban, and gained Rachel for his second wife, and he kept Laban's flock for six years more, and the sheep increased under Jacob's hand.

Leah bore Jacob four sons; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. But Rachel was barren and bore not. Then Rachel gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob, and Bilhah bore two sons, Dan and Naphtali. Leah also gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob, and she bore Gad and Asher. Then Leah bore Issachar and Zebulon; and Jehovah heard Rachel, and sent her a son, whom she called Joseph. When Joseph was born, Jacob said to Laban: For twenty years I have been with thee; thy sheep and thy goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock I have not eaten. Let me depart that I may go to my own land, with my wives and children, and give me my hire. What shall I give thee? asked Laban. Set aside all that are striped and spotted among thy sheep and goats, and whatever is afterwards born striped or spotted among thy sheep and goats, that shall be my hire, said Jacob. And Laban said: Be it according to thy word. Then Jacob set apart the coloured sheep and goats; and when the time of generation came, he took fresh wands of maple and almond-wood, and made white strips in them, by peeling off the bark, and cast them into the wells and runnels, where Laban's sheep and goats were watered; and everything was born spotted, and fell to Jacob's share, so that he became mighty, and gained many sheep and camels, and asses, and maid-servants, and men-servants. But Laban's countenance was not towards him as heretofore; and Laban's sons were angry and said: He has got his wealth from that which is our father's. Then Jacob arose, when Laban was gone to the shearing, and set forth secretly with his wives and children, and flocks; and Rachel took the images from the house of her father, and carried them with her, and Jacob fled over the river, and set his face towards Mount Gilead. Then Laban hastened after him, and came up with him on Mount Gilead, and said: "Why art thou fleeing secretly before me, so that I cannot accompany thee with drums, and music, and singing? why hast thou not allowed me to kiss my daughters, and why hast thou taken my gods?" Jacob answered: "I was afraid, for I thought thou wouldest take thy daughters from me." And Jacob set up a stone on Mount Gilead, and they made a heap of stones, and offered sacrifice on the heap, and Laban said: "The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor be judge between us, and guardian that thou do not afflict my daughters, or take other wives to them; and this heap be witness that I go not after thee for evil, nor shalt thou come beyond this sign after me for evil." And Jacob swore by him, whom his father feared, and offered sacrifice on the mountain. And the heap of stones was called Galeed (heap of witness), and Mizpah (watch tower), because Laban had said that Jehovah should be guardian if they were separated one from the other.

And Jacob sent messengers before him to appease his brother Esau, to Mount Seir, with 200 ewes, and 20 rams, and 200 she-goats, and 20 he-goats, and 30 camels with their colts, and 40 cows, and 10 bulls, and 20 she-asses, and 10 asses, as a gift to Esau; and he divided his flocks into two parts, that the one might escape, if Esau came against the other; for he was sore afraid. He rose in the night and took his two wives, and his two maids, and his eleven children, and carried them through the ford of the Jabbok, but he himself remained behind. Then a man wrestled with him till the morning broke, and smote the socket of his hip, and Jacob's hip was out of joint. And he said: "Let me go, for the morning is breaking." But Jacob said: "I will not let thee go, till thou blessest me." Then he said: "Thy name shall be Jacob no longer, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God, and with men, and hast overcome," and he blessed him there. And Jacob named the place Peniel (God's visage), and the sun arose as he passed beyond Peniel.

Jacob lifted up his eyes, and lo! Esau came, and with him four hundred men. Then Jacob assigned his children to Leah and Rachel and the two maids, and the maids and their children he put in the front, and next Leah and her children, and last of all Rachel with her son. He went before them and bowed himself seven times before his brother. But Esau embraced him, and kissed him, and they wept. The present of cattle Esau would not accept. "I have enough, my brother," he said, "keep what is thine." But Jacob urged him to take them as a proof that he had found grace in his eyes. Then Esau took them and parted in peace from his brother, and on the same day turned back on his way to Mount Seir. But Jacob went to Shechem, and bought the field where he had pitched his tent, and there set up an altar; and from Shechem he went to Bethel, and there also he built an altar; and from Bethel Jacob returned to Hebron to his father Isaac.

As we have seen, the Arabs and Phenicians believed that the power and might of the gods was present in certain stones, which they worshipped in their sanctuaries (pp. 329, 360). The Hebrews also were acquainted with this worship. The first text tells us that God appeared to Jacob when he returned out of Mesopotamia, that He blessed him, and said: Henceforth Israel shall be thy name. And God went up from the place where he had spoken with him, and Jacob set up a stone as a sign on the place, and poured oil on it, and called the name of the place Bethel (house of God).595 In the older mode of conception, the stone was itself the house of God. The Ephraimitic text represents Jacob as resting on the stone when he went to Mesopotamia, and as seeing in a dream the ladder on which the angels went up and down;596 the appearance of Jehovah at the top of the ladder, as well as the form of the blessing, belongs to the revision.597 The change of the name Jacob into Israel is referred by the Ephraimitic text to a definite occasion. To the Hebrews, in the old time, the god of their tribe was a jealous and fearful deity, averse to the life of nature, – a god who exercised dominion above in the highest heaven, who rode on the clouds, and announced himself in thunder and lightning, and earthquakes, who appeared in flames of fire, whom the eye of mortal man could not behold and live.598 The supernatural God can in the first instance be conceived and regarded only in contrast to nature, and the life of nature. But inasmuch as the natural life can only come into being and continue to exist by his permission, and with his consent, that life must be redeemed and purchased. Hence according to the primitive conception of the Hebrews, everything that was brought to the birth belonged to their god, the firstlings of the field, and of beast, the first-born male of the woman. Abraham was ready to sacrifice the firstborn son of his wife, the son of his own heart. But he was not permitted to slay him. He had already offered the sacrifice, inasmuch as he was resolved to sacrifice what was dearest, in obedience to the bidding of God. So runs the Ephraimitic text. As Jacob was returning from the Euphrates he came upon a place in Gilead, known as "God's visage." Here, in the dark of the night, a man wrestled with Jacob till the morning broke, and Jacob would not let him go till he had blessed him; "Thou hast striven with God and men, and overcome; therefore, henceforth thy name shall be Israel."599 In the myth of the Phenicians, the power of destruction is taken from the hostile god, when the friendly god wrestles with him. The Hebrews changed the wrestling between the hostile and friendly deities, into a wrestling between the servant and the master, between the patriarch of the tribe and his god, a struggle from which the former does not let the god go till he has obtained a pledge, that he will spare him and his tribe, and send increase and blessing to him and his tribe. The contrast of hostile and friendly deities, and their struggle with each other, the Hebrew conceives as the work, the toil, the struggle of men, i. e. strenuous wrestling to win the blessing of God. Jacob carried away the injury to his thigh, but he won the blessing of Jehovah.

With this conception of the Hebrews, that the First-born belonged to Jehovah, is connected the ordinance that a ransom must be offered for him. Moreover, in every spring the Paschal lamb was offered as a sin-offering for the redemption of the house, along with the firstlings of the field. The use of circumcision also, as it seems, stood with the Hebrews in close connection with the idea that the life of boys must be ransomed by a bloody sacrifice. Jehovah is said to have commanded Abraham to circumcise his family in token of the covenant which he had made with him and his seed (p. 392). This custom was also in use among the Edomites and certain other Arabian and Syrian tribes.600